The Crying Game

Last week, I posted on the need for honesty when writing about life abroad.

This week, Johanna Castro is guest posting on ISOALLO about one of the hardest parts of living overseas - saying goodbye.

Johanna is a freelance writer living in Western Australia. In her words, she "champions voyages of discovery to dream places and quiet spaces. Helping you to 'Live for the moment, Love adventure and Do something awesome', her travel and lifestyle blog, Zigazag, aims to entertain and inform. You can also find her on Twitter as @johannaAcastro". In this sponsored expat post, here's what she has to say about goodbyes...

The worst thing about deciding to live overseas for good is saying goodbye to family and friends back ‘home’.

It really hurts.

And it doesn’t get any easier as you get older. In fact, I hate to say this but I think it gets worse. For each time you go back on holiday, you begin to develop an attachment problem.

The only way I can describe it is a bit like a phobia of leaving. There’s this feeling that when you leave again, the emotional gap you are about to create will never be filled and what if, Oh Crikey, What If you never get to see these people again?

Photo credit: Flickr Creative Commons (Kellan)

Expat life

When I first left England at the age of 19 with a backpack and a guitar, bound for a job as a show jumping groom in Belgium, I didn’t really think I’d be setting a precedent that would last for the rest of my life. In fact, the first time I waved goodbye to the White Cliffs of Dover, it was quite easy to leave what I then felt were the suffocating intimacies of home. I couldn’t wait to travel.  I was young and selfish and in search of my destiny, whatever that was.

But later, I became more worldly-wise and found attachment and love, along came children and, well past my due date for settling down, I found that a life of change had become the status quo, hitched as I am to an itinerant geologist who has had the opportunity to work on projects in interesting countries all around the world.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved our nomadic life of new experiences in strange or exciting places but, as you get older, the pure selfishness of youth gets chipped away.

Learning to be tough and resourceful

After having children, I found that I wanted (and needed) to share more about my life, particularly the joys and tribulations of bringing up children, particularly with people who would give a damn - like the Grandies.

Both sets of our parents lived two continents away from us during our child-rearing years, on opposite sides of the world. Not good for babysitting. And not available either as sounding boards of wisdom when the going got tough.

I guess we learnt to be tough and resourceful all on our own. That was the upside to expat life, finding mentors and like-minds amongst our new friends overseas who were in similar circumstances. But they were not ‘family’ and, when the doors closed at night, we were emotionally on our own.

Expats need to be strong minded

You have to be strong of character to be an expat, especially when it comes to saying Goodbye.

“I’m going to see my daughter next month and I’m already dreading the Goodbye,” says my friend April.

For “Goodbye” is the hardest word. The word “Farewell”  denotes a possibility of seeing each other in the near future, but Goodbye feels so final and, because expats are often not too sure when they’ll be back in their homelands again to see their loved ones, its impact can feel almost death-like.

“My heart breaks each time I have to say Goodbye and, for a little while at least, there’s a gaping void which I think can never be filled,” explains my friend, Sarah.

Goodbye is the hardest word

Our loved ones wave us tearfully goodbye, as we jet off on jumbo jets to far-flung climes and distant shores with names they may not be able to pronounce and possibly don’t want to. Our loved ones may not be able to spare the cash to spend on long haul holidays and plans for holidays abroad might extend, at least for my relatives, to short breaks in France but not to Timbuktoo.

Another downside is that a medical system with similar standards in developed countries is far preferable to an emergency ward in, say, a Kathmandu hospital for someone nearing  the age of 70. Yes, I have lived in far flung outposts which have been exciting for us, but terrifying for the Grandies.

“As an expat I’m always saying goodbye. To my friends, to my family and, more recently, to my children as they have grown up and left the family nest,” says Jen.

When will we be back?

But all is not lost. Expats are often able to take the summer migration back home, courtesy of the Company’s generous allowance for the yearly ‘home leave’ – sometimes. Or you may be earning enough in the new world to be able to visit the old country once a year. But after the summer migration and a holiday back ‘home’, the word Goodbye is filled with a big black hole of doubt. Will this be possible again next year?

When will we be back?

“The thought of it tears me up, every time,” another friend said.

For if we are financially able to return back ‘home’ next year, it will probably mean forfeiting a holiday exploring the country or continent we have come to live in.

You can’t have it all. But, still, it is a dilemma.

And you begin to wonder if that kind of dilemma is selfish or acceptable and how do you live with the guilt of it anyway?

I’ve never been able to work that one out.

Following our dreams

Looking down the other end of the telescope from a mother’s perspective, the feelings are no different.

“I cry every time my kids leave,” says my friend Dee, as she waives her now grown-up children off to careers and new homes in the Middle East. “It gets harder each time they go. You do understand the dilemma of wanting them to be happy where they are, but you also want them to be close to home too. What you don’t want though is that they should feel guilty for pursuing their own dreams.”

Ah, yes, dreams. We all have the choice to follow our own dreams but, unlike clouds, very few dreams have totally silver linings.

We have a choice and we need to understand the consequences.

Then we must toss out that gremlin of a word Goodbye and replace it firmly with Farewell – and just get on with it.

What do you think? Do you find it hard to say Goodbye?

This expat post was sponsored by Which Offshore, an online consumer resource for those seeking professional information and advice pertaining to matters related to expatriate life and offshore finance, including offshore banking, investments, QROPS, retirement options, and more.

QROPS stands for a Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme. Introduced in April 2006, a QROP Scheme is an HMRC-recognised offshore pension scheme that allows non-UK residents to transfer their UK private/corporate pension offshore, tax free. An independent financial adviser can provide advice on pension transfers based on individual specific requirements.

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